Lost Rent or Rent Lost?

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. Whoops! I go through spurts. Hopefully this is the start of a lots of posting spurt. We'll see. I haven't been much into writing lately. Writing anything, blogs, poems, stories, essays, anything besides e-mail and tweets has not been appealing. Not sure why but I've learned that the best thing I can do in most cases is just go with the flow.

An interestingly random thing came up in an e-mail chain with some friends today. We were talking about the TV show Lost. I am behind by two and a half seasons and have been trying to catch up so I can watch this coming season live (or more likely on DVR). Francesca jokingly made a reference to a Rent singalong at the end of season 5 even going so far as casting a few of the rolls and it just snowballed from there.

Of course I can think of nothing better than combining two things so dear to me so I've finished the casting (with Francesca's help of course). So, here you go, the characters of Lost recast as the characters of Rent.

Jack Shephard as Roger Davis
Charlie Pace as Mark Cohen
Desmond Hume as Tom Collins
James "Sawyer" Ford as Benjamin "Benny" Coffin III
Sun Kwon as Maureen Johnson
Jin Kwon as Joanne Jefferson
Hugo "Hurley" Reyes as Angel Shunard
Kate Austen as Mimi Marquez
Claire Littleton as Alexi Darling
Mr. Eko as Paul the Life Support Group Leader
John Locke as Mr. Grey
Ana-Lucia Cortez as A Woman with Bags (or Bag Lady)
Sayid Jarrah as Man with Squeegee and Cop
Ben Linus as Steve (Steve leads the cast in the song Will I which seems kind of fitting for Ben)
And of course, Vincent the Dog as Evita

Yes, I am obsessed with Rent. Your point?

Obviously the lyrics for this post have to come from Rent so I give you some of What You Own.

You're living in America
At the end of the millennium
You're living in America
Where it's like the Twilight Zone
And when you're living in America
At the end of the millennium
You're what you own
So I own not a notion
I escape and ape content
I don't own emotion -- I rent

Boots

I am all about boots recently. Well, recently as in the last few days. Or really since I saw a pair that looked amazing on a woman at the Dar Williams concert on Sunday night. I have now spent hours on the Zappos website looking at everything out there in boot land. I ordered one pair this morning. I went for the ones that were on sale for half price instead of the ones that cost more than what I spend on groceries for three weeks. I hope I like them as much in person as I like them online.

The pair I ordered are on the casual side. I can probably get away with wearing them at work every once in a while. Maybe. I'll have a better idea about that when they get here. I now want to find a pair I can wear to work more consistently. As in, they need to be a bit more dressy. Here are the problems with that. I apparently have VERY expensive taste in shoes. I don't do heels and I certainly don't do shoes that are overly girly. The heel issue limits my options somewhat as does the needing something that's not overly girly. But then of course I start thinking, well, a chunky heel might not be too bad...

I found a pair I like that I could definitely wear to work and that are "my style" but they are slightly out of my price range. And by slightly I mean they are bordering on being a frivolous purchase for me and I'm trying hard not to be frivolous with my spending. However, I do need new work shoes and boots are considered shoes after all so in that case they would be an investment and would be put to good use and would only be a tad more expensive than what I normally spend on shoes for work. That's assuming I'd wear them that is, but that remains to be seen. And how exactly do you figure out if you'll wear the boots often unless you purchase them? In other words: rock - Jess starting at boots online - hard place.

So, I'm going to sleep on it. I will probably wait until the pair I ordered this morning arrive before I make any decisions. That said, I want the pair I ordered to be here now.

I think the lyrics for this post should be rather obvious. They are, of course, from These Boots Were Made For Walking by Nancy Sinatra.

You keep lyin' when you oughta be truthin'
and you keep losin' when you oughta not bet.
You keep samin' when you oughta be changin'.
Now what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet.

These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do
one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.

A short list

I thought of some things today (at different times) that I wanted to blog about so here's a short list for you.

1. We had a very productive writing group meeting tonight. And it felt really good. Darn near inspiring. I think my motivation might be returning. This is a very good thing as my motivation has apparently been on an extended vacation somewhere with a beach, a stack of good books, a personal chef and her dog. She's unhappy at leaving paradise but knows it's time to get back to work. She's still a bit grumbly and I believe also jet lagged, but that's nothing a good night's sleep won't fix.

2. I wonder if the folks from my writing group read my blog? If so, hi guys! Hope you enjoy it.

3. If you don't already know this about me, I'm gay. Very very gay. I am reminded of this on nearly a daily basis, especially when I see a woman I find attractive (such as young IT girl at work who hooked up our new student work stations yesterday and who I believe shares my first name and who I also think is gay, anyway, moving on....). Being gay is simply a part of who I am and it is what it is.

4. However, when you're gay you don't just come out once and that's that. You have to come out over and over and over and over again. Anytime you meet new people and something comes up in conversation that requires you to go into detail about yourself you have to come out all over again. It gets easier with time and the more you do it the easier it is, but when you haven't had to do it for a while you kind of forget about it and it gets hard again. I was reminded of this tonight in my writing group meeting. One of the other members was commenting on a piece I wrote and asked a very good question about whether or not it's important to know that the woman in the piece was in a gay marriage or partnership. My answer was "well, it's autobiographical, so..." which didn't really answer her question. But it did out me to two new people that I barely know which is always uncomfortable (for me at least) for a few minutes. And really the answer to her question is "no, it's probably not important to know that."

5. I was looking through old e-mails at work today trying to find something I know I have but I cannot for the life of me remember where I filed it. I keep nearly every single e-mail I receive or I send at work (except for a six month span of time which got wiped out during an unfortunate computer crash, and I mean a literal crash where my tower fell over and landed on the hard drive wiping out anything I hadn't backed up and of course I hadn't backed up in six months). I am a big fan of CYA (cover your ass) especially as it relates to work. I cannot tell you how many times being such an electronic packrat has come in very very handy. But being a packrat like that also gives me a chance to reflect on how far I've come, both professionally and personally, when I stumble across old e-mails as I'm looking for something else. Today I found an e-mail from two years and three-ish weeks ago (mid-July 2007). During that time I was deseperately searching for a house as Ms. Ex and I had sold ours and set a closing date that was rapidly approaching. It was also the end of our fiscal year at work which is always hellish. My reply below was in response to a question from a friend and former colleague who simply asked "how's the search for a house coming?" in an e-mail exchange with me and two other friends/former colleagues.

Let's see...the people that are buying our house are being complete asses about the inspection report so we're not even sure if the deal is still going through. They agreed to an Aug. 22nd closing date and now want to move it to Aug. 15th which is out of the question. I made an offer on a house last Friday that I loved, but it wasn't accepted. I found out after I'd already written and submitted the offer that there were other offers waiting to be presented on it. I waited all weekend to find that out and then found out on Monday that I didn't get the house. I saw two houses yesterday and six today and I'm not in love with any of them. I'm up the creek without a paddle right now and I'm leaving tomorrow for a few days in ME that Ms. Ex (note, name changed to protect the, um, well to protect me really) is now giving me shit about because I don't have a deal locked in on a house and she thinks I should only be going for 2 days instead of 4. Joanie (the dog Ms. Ex now has) had knee surgery yesterday to top it all off. Oh and I'm totally PMSing so I'm a total emotional wreck. How are you all?

I had totally forgotten what a shitting fucking summer that was for me (okay, okay it was a shitty fucking 18 months or so really). I have come a very long way since then and I am so very very thankful for that. Life really is good when you aren't bogged down by negative energies. Life, I love you and am grateful for all of the good things you've sent my way! I cannot thank you enough.

6. Lyrics for this post come from a song that will always remind me of college, I Kissed A Girl by Jill Sobule (this is not the same song as the one of the same name that's all the rage now by Katy Perry. Frankly Jill's version isn't quite as derogatory to us gays as Katy's song is. Of course, Katy's song is pretty darned catchy and I will freely admit that I like it and own it as well as the rest of her album which contains such classics as Ur So Gay and If You Can Afford Me. Anywho......).

And we laughed at the world
they can have their diamonds
and we'll have our pearls
I kissed a girl

I kissed a girl, her lips were sweet
she was just like kissing me
I kissed a girl, won't change the world
but I'm so glad I kissed a girl

Ugh

Today was my first day back at work after a much needed two week vacation. I came back to an unenthusiastic welcome back from my boss, 600 e-mails and down two staff who are both on vacation this week (thank god we're not really swamped right now). This was followed by a committee meeting, a phone call reminding me of a meeting I was late for which wasn't on my calendar and a voice mail from a co-worker wondering if I'd had a chance to look at a report for her yet (in the five hours I'd been back at work after two weeks off).

Yeah, I'm sure I had time to look at the report before catching up on everything else that's been waiting for my attention for two weeks and reading through 600 e-mails. I love when people think the one thing they need from me is the only thing in the world I might possibly have to do and is of course the most important thing on my plate. No one seems to remember that my job used to be done by two people and even then we had trouble keeping up with everything. Now it's just me with the same amount (if not more) of work to accomplish in what feels like a far shorter period of time.

The bright spot of the day is that IT finally replaced our four student work stations. I've been asking for years (and I'm honestly not exaggerating) to have them replaced. They were the biggest, ugliest, oldest, clunkiest computers ever and it took forever for our students to do anything on them. Right before I left for vacation I guess I finally asked the right person (on a whim) and she made it happen for me. I give her a huge shout out for that. Thank you Anne Marie (who will likely never see this but I thank her from the bottom of my heart anyway)!!!

I got to work 20 minutes early and I left 45 minutes late and could have stayed longer. Happy first day back to work to me. At least I managed to get a run in tonight after I walked Maggie. Oh and it didn't rain today which is practically a miracle. The good news is running is awesome, I love the burn. I find it addicting. Yes, there may in fact be something wrong with me. I am aware of that. The bad news is I think my knees are older than I feel. Hopefully they won't give me too much trouble as I continue the Couch to 5K training. Time will tell.

Maggie is snoring quietly on the couch next to me. That's so comforting to me and much needed after a long day at work. And for today's song I give you Chain Gang by Sam Cooke. It feels fitting for a first day back at work blog post.

All day long they work so hard
'til the suns going down
Working on the highways and byways
And wearing, wearing a frown
You hear them moaning their lives away
Then you hear somebody say
That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang
That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang